Easy drug-free ways to lower your high blood pressure/hypertension. - Eat less salt/sodium and more fruit.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

The world's first custom-made bones that can be "grown" in a matter of hours and fit precisely into a break could be available within three years.

Custom-made bones to be grown within hours
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The new bones will replace damaged or ceramic versions that are currently used in reconstructive surgery.

They are made of one of the key materials in human bone, calcium phosphate, which means they will not be rejected by the body and will be completely absorbed into the skeleton within a couple of years.

Japanese researchers have made the breakthrough and say they will be available for use on the skull within three years and then the rest of the body soon after that.

Yuichi Tei, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Tokyo, said: "We have just completed the investigative study and clinical trials are under way on patients.

"Some people have congenital defects, others have lost bone after undergoing surgery for cancer, while others have been in traffic accidents.

"The reactions we have had so far have been very favourable."

Named CT Bone, the revolutionary system takes a series of minutely detailed pictures and x-rays to form a three-dimensional image of the affected portion of skull.

Once the 3-D image has been taken, layers of calcium phosphate just 0.1mm thick are laid on top of each other hundreds of times – in a similar way to an inkjet printer – until they match the exact shape and size of bone required.

The device, which was developed with Tokyo-based firm Next 21, repeats the process and builds up layers – 100 layers create a one-centimetre thick implant.

The technology also has narrow holes running through the artificial bones, inviting blood vessels and cells to come and help regenerate bone."

If this proves ultimately safe and successful what a wonderful boon it will be to so many people!

Low Vitamin D may lead to cardiac death. Recommended daily intakes of vitamin D should be raised.

Sunshine is the key to a long and healthy life, for a new study has found that vitamin D deficiency can harm cardiovascular health and also result in death due to heart failure. Read article in the Times of India

'Call to action' issued for raising vitamin D levels

Recommended daily intakes of vitamin D should be raised to 2,000 International Units, says a group of 18 scientists from the University of California. The “call to action” by the UC scientists, led by Anthony Norman, echoes a number of others from leading academics across the globe, and may increase the need for policy makers to review current guidelines for the vitamin. Such increases could also open opportunities for food fortification and supplements. Current recommended daily intakes (RDIs) of vitamin D are 200 IU for people up to 50 years of age, 400 IU for people between 51 and 70, and 600 IU for over the 70s years. “The consensus among UC scientists who signed this statement is that 2000 IU per day of vitamin D3, a form of vitamin D, is the appropriate intake for most adult Americans,” said Norman.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

1 in 4 new-generation biological drugs cause serious side effects

1 in 4 new bio meds cause serious side effects
Study: Drugs made from living materials often later need safety warning
Nearly a fourth of widely used new-generation biological drugs for several common diseases produce serious side effects that lead to safety warnings soon after they go on the market, the first major study of its kind found. Included in the report were the arthritis drugs Humira and Remicade, cancer drugs Rituxan and Erbitux, and the heart failure drug Natrecor. All wound up being flagged for safety.
Read article at msnbc.com

In his report, Sunlight Robbery, Oliver Gillie says we need more of the sunshine vitamin, Vitamin D.

See http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/reports/sunlightrobbery.pdf

It is very well worth reading. Among the many health problems caused by insufficient vitamin D are weak bones with a tendency to fracture easily.

Chemotherapy contributes to a quarter of cancer deaths: study

The following post along with the Comment that accompanies it is copied and pasted from the Dr Rath Foundation's newsletter:

A new study has raised serious questions about the use of chemotherapy for late-stage cancer patients. The review of 600 cancer patients in Britain who died within 30 days of treatment has found that one in four of the deaths was either caused or hastened by the chemotherapy.
Read article on the ABC News website (Australia)
Comment: The use of toxic chemotherapy and other dangerous approaches to the treatment of cancer primarily serves one goal: to use the cancer epidemic as a global market for the pharmaceutical investment business with patented drugs. Unbeknownst to many of the patients who undergo these treatments, their most frequent side-effects include the causing of additional cancers - thus turning the cancer disease into a financial goldmine for the pharmaceutical industry. To learn about Dr. Rath’s discovery in cancer, and discover how the natural amino acid lysine and vitamin C can safely and effectively control cancer metastasis without the horrific side-effects suffered by chemotherapy patients, click here.

Nine out of ten NHS health trusts failed to meet hygiene standards put in place to reduce hospital infections, according to results of spot checks.

Health trusts fail hygiene tests designed to stop infections
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The Healthcare Commission tested 51 trusts unannounced and found that only five adhered to Government rules. Its sample represents around a third of acute health trusts in England and were part of the largest ever programme of hygiene inspections in the NHS.

While most of the failures did not pose an immediate risk to patient safety, the Commission found almost all acute trusts had more work to do to control the spread of infection.

In the areas where breaches did cause a serious risk, managers were told to take immediate action.

Three trusts were given improvement notices to tackle failures in decontamination processes.

Just over half of the 51 trusts failed to keep all areas clean and well-maintained, the Commission said.

However, it found that most had improved in relation to leadership and ensuring uniforms were clean and fit for purpose."

Women should stop using talcum powder because of the risk of ovarian cancer, according to researchers.

Women warned of talcum powder cancer risk
Article in the Telegraph

The greater risk of ovarian cancer from using talcum powder on the private parts has been known for years, but this latest research finds that the increased risk is greater than previously thought. - It is an insidious, often fatal disease which frequently goes unrecognised/undiagnosed/untreated, so it's best to take this research seriously and avoid using talc on the private parts.

Extract from the article:

"Scientists fear particles applied to the private parts may travel to the ovaries and trigger a process of inflammation that allows cancer cells to flourish.

Although previous studies have raised concerns over talc, the latest findings from the United States suggest woman who use it are 40 per cent more likely to get ovarian cancer – a much greater risk than first thought.

Experts from Harvard Medical School in Boston studied more than 3,000 women and found using talc merely once a week raised the risk of cancer by 36 per cent, rising to 41 per cent for those applying powder every day.

Dr Maggie Gates, who led the study, said that until the outcome of further research women should avoid using talc in the genital area. An alternative is cornstarch powder."

These are healthy breakfast cereals that will not make you gain weight - Shredded Wheat, porridge, Ready Brek

But don't put salt in the porridge/porage! - Overweight people should avoid salt and salty food, so as not to increase fluid retention and hypertension.

Most other breakfast cereals contain a lot of salt and so will tend to make fat people fatter and will raise the blood pressure of people who have high blood pressure. - These 'baddie' breakfast cereals include Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Clusters (honey and nut), Kelloggs Bran Flakes, Kelloggs Rice Krispies, Kelloggs Fruit n fibre, Kelloggs Cornflakes and other brands of cornflakes too, Cheerios, Special K, Quaker Oat Krunchies. (I don't know how the manufacturers get away with claiming that Special K helps you lose weight when you have it instead of 2 of your 3 meals in a day for 2 weeks...(o: - It contains a high proportion of salt so it cannot help you to lose excess weight.)

Maybe you think you don't eat much salt/sodium? - I invite you to have a look at the labels on the packs of food in your store-cupboards. - You'll be surprised...

Obesity is a very serious disease syndrome caused by the medical profession and its acolytes, by the dieting industry, and by pharmaceutical companies, all of which have supplied harmful misinformation to innocent members of the public and then blamed their victims for the harm caused...

The processed food industry has been equally culpable in doing harm by adding far too much salt to their products.

While women and men continue to be constantly misinformed by the foolish, unscientific 'experts', then obesity will continue to increase both in incidence and in severity. The best way to extend your life-span and improve your health is to cut out salt as far as you can and also to avoid prescribed pharmaceutical drugs as far as possible.

To lose excess weight it is necessary to eat less salt and salty food because this will reduce the body's fluid retention. This is the safe, sure, healthy way to lose and it works like magic.

DON'T DIET! - Dieting is unnecessary, harmful and IT DOES NOT WORK!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

I am not myself in favour of the usual sort of animal research that is done "to make medical progress".

I was interested in this letter, which appears on the Letters Page of the online Telegraph today. I hope it is OK to reproduce it here.

Animal research

Sir - You quoted me saying that Oxford University will be glad if and when animal research becomes unnecessary. This is true. However, as I went on to explain, that day has not yet arrived. There is scientific consensus worldwide that some animal research is needed to make medical progress.

Those who believe scientists are unwilling to move away from animal use because of inertia or lazy thinking are misguided. There is every incentive - legal, moral and financial - to find other ways to answer research questions.

Animals are used only where no other research technique is possible.

Professor Rodney Phillips, University of Oxford

I am not myself in favour of the usual sort of animal research that is done "to make medical progress", especially when the "medical progress" is for the supposed benefit of people, rather than animals themselves, and often entails a lot of suffering for the hapless animals that are the subjects of the research. I believe this suffering cannot be morally justified. And there have been plenty of instances of drug companies suppressing evidence they don't want us to know. - Have a look at some of the evidence:

The news that antidepressants in actual fact don't work better than sugar pills and increase the risk of suicide has filled major media during the past year. Psychiatrists, Big Pharma and medical agencies, responsible for distorting the facts for many years, are now working hard to save profits and careers, says Swedish independent investigator and reporter Janne Larsson.
Read article on Sepp Hasslberger's Health Supreme website

Tricyclic antidepressants, e.g. amitriptyline, also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, also cause weight gain/fluid retention and are therefore a common cause of obesity, a very serious illness. Likewise several steroids and HRT - See prescribed steroids and HRT and amitriptyline

Glaxo 'downplayed' warning on heart-attack risk from Aids drug

GlaxoSmithKline and one of its key executives are facing possible manslaughter charges re. side-effects of an anti-Hepatitis "B" vaccine

US VACCINE MAKER TARGET OF HOMOCIDE INVESTIGATION
In a criminal case guaranteed to send shockwaves throughout the international pharmaceutical industry, French authorities are targeting a US-based drug company and its executives in a homicide investigation. The multi-billion dollar corporation GlaxoSmithKline and one of its key executives are facing possible manslaughter charges stemming from allegations that the company failed to fully disclose side effects from an anti-Hepatitis "B" vaccine distributed between 1994 and 1998. Also being investigated is the French-based drug company Sanofi Pasteur, which also sold doses of the Hepatitis "B" vaccine, according to French news sources
Read article at newswithviews.com

Drugs 'of no benefit' to hyperactive children

Scale of pharma payments to med schools revealed

It seems to me that the research is not actually done to benefit the health of people who are ill, but to benefit the profits of the drug companies, because most animal research seems to be testing new drugs or drug variations, and there is a lot of evidence that the drug companies cannot be trusted about the truthfulness of the research findings they disclose, e.g. Read article at pharmalot.com

It was reported on 19 July 2006 in Britain's "Daily Telegraph" that the British Pharmacological Society has drawn attention to the widespread poor prescribing practices among doctors.

I was glad to see this, especially following on as it does, the Sunday Telegraph's report 'Sleaze in the Medical Profession' of July 9th 2006. As a steroid victim myself, damaged and made morbidly obese by being inappropriately prescribed HRT (without testing hormone levels first) and by inadequate monitoring and testing thereafter, I feel peculiarly well-placed to make critical comments.

We are not just badly served by our extremely highly paid doctors, we are ill-served by our politicians and by the Department of Health and by the Parliamentary Select Committees and many other individuals and agencies and professional bodies who should be monitoring these matters. - I wrote well over 30 letters to MPs and Select Committees, medics, scientists, media people and others in 2001 about the dire consequences of inappropriate prescribing - often in high dose - of certain steroids and of HRT and of amitriptyline, an antidepressant drug. Following those I received only one helpful reply - from Professor Sir Richard Doll, agreeing with what I had written about the obesity problems caused by poor prescribing and indicating that these could be lessened by diuretics and/or eating less salt/sodium, a fact I had already deduced. He wrote that all doctors should know this. - Mine didn't - and furthermore, mine CATEGORICALLY refused me diuretics when I asked to try them!

It is over 50 years since steroids were first prescribed and it is both incredible and deplorable that most doctors are still unaware in practice of their potential for causing sodium and water retention and morbid obesity, cancer and type 2 diabetes, heart disease, blindness and the many other serious health problems attendant on these... - That this is the case MUST be largely the responsibility of the researchers working for the drug companies, and the drug companies themselves, who MUST have known the facts because of their research on animals.

Animal research doesn't seem to have saved much suffering in the case of the many millions of victims of drug-induced morbid obesity, does it, since the findings of the animal research have been so well concealed from the people who most needed to know the truth? Nor, of course, was there justification for the deaths and suffering of the animals sacrificed in this research.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page.

Holes drilled in the wrong side of heads during surgery. - It's not Brain Surgery, is it?

Holes drilled in the wrong side of heads during surgery NHS watchdog warns
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"So-called wrong site surgery has been a consistent problem in the NHS and in some cases patients have died as result of having the wrong organ removed.

In 2005 the National Patient Safety Agency issued an alert to all neurosurgical units after an audit found there was no standard method of identifying which side the patient was to have surgery with some units marking with pen the side to be operated on and others marking the side not to.

Since the alert the NPSA have had another 15 reports of incidents in nine of the 36 neuro centres where surgeons have begun brain surgery on the wrong side of the head.

Another alert has now been issued saying it is still a problem.

The brain surgery incidents are among 56 wrong site surgical mistakes reported to the NPSA during 2007 and another 654 reports related to operating list errors where the wrong patient or the wrong operation had been planned."

Getting the right side? - It's a no-brainer!

A naturally occurring protein, telomerase, that can create "immortal cells", could be the key to finding a real elixir of youth, scientists claim.

Scientists take a step closer to an elixir of youth
article in the Telegraph

I'm sceptical about this, myself. I believe that the longer the obesity 'experts' continue to blame 'overeating', the disorder they invented, for the rise in obesity, and continue to urge overweight people to 'just eat less and exercise more', i.e. to cut down on calories and go hungry, life expectancy is far more likely to become lower, not higher.

Obesity is a very serious disease syndrome caused by the medical profession and its acolytes, by the dieting industry, and by pharmaceutical companies, all of which have supplied harmful misinformation to innocent members of the public and then blamed their victims for the harm caused...

The processed food industry has been equally culpable in doing harm by adding far too much salt to their products.

While women and men continue to be constantly misinformed by the foolish, unscientific 'experts', then obesity will continue to increase both in incidence and in severity. While you are waiting for the 'elixir of youth' to be perfected, the best way to extend your life-span and improve your health is to cut out salt as far as you can and also to avoid prescribed pharmaceutical junk as far as possible.

To lose excess weight it is necessary to eat less salt and salty food because this will reduce the body's fluid retention. This is the safe, sure, healthy way to lose and it works like magic.

DON'T DIET! - Dieting is unnecessary, harmful and IT DOES NOT WORK!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

A teenager, Naomi Haynes, who drank 50 cans of caffeine-laced energy drinks such as Red Bull a week, was warned her addiction could kill her.

Teenager collapsed after becoming addicted to Red Bull
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Naomi Haynes, 14, became so dependent on the drinks that she would spend all her money on them and even borrow from friends to fund the habit.

"The drinks made me happy and I got a great buzz from them, but then I would feel tired and unhappy so I would have another drink to pick me up," said Miss Haynes, of East Cowes, Isle of Wight.

It got to the stage where she would smuggle them into class to stop her from falling asleep.

But she says she has now been warned by doctors that her addiction could lead to a heart attack."

"A spokesman for Red Bull said: "One 250 ml can of Red Bull Energy Drink contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, which is 80mg. The consumption of Red Bull Energy Drink should therefore correspond to a person’s intake of coffee and the same is true for children. We do not recommend Red Bull Energy Drink to caffeine sensitive individuals including children."

Can't say I've noticed the 'ug' before. - Have you? - It's also known as the μg...

I was looking at the information on the front of my pack of vitamin D3 capsules and saw that they are each 10ug, i.e. 400 IU, from fish liver oils. Can't say I've noticed the 'ug' before. - Have you? - It's also known as the μg. - I knew it as the μg. - μ is a Greek letter.

So if you too are interested in the ug, aka the μg:

μg means microgram. The prefix "micro" means 1/1,000,000. Therefore, 1 microgram = 0.001 milligram = 0.000001 grams, or 1,000,000 μg = 1 g

The Telegraph reports that being overweight is a curse not just on a woman's health, but on her entire life, a new study has found.

Obesity is a curse for women
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Researchers have discovered that overweight women are more likely to lose their jobs, be a victim of crime and have money troubles. They are are more likely to be criminals themselves.

To make matters worse, because of these stressful life events, they are driven to comfort-eating which only perpetuates the problem, increasing the probability that they will be unluckier still."

The first paragraph of the extract I have chosen is doubtless correct. These findings are measurable and are capable of being checked to see if they can be replicated. - The second paragraph is assumption (false), based not on evidence, but on learned prejudice. - The fatter/more obese people are, obviously the more food/calories they need in order to service their heavier bodies - to move their heavier bodies around and to keep their bodies warm. - If the fat people do indeed eat the greater amount of food/calories they need why should it be called 'comfort-eating' or any other derogatory term?

And here's a fact - not an assumption for the misguided, condescending 'experts' that bring out these flawed 'studies' to ponder - when fat people disobey the dictates of their bodies' needs and stay hungry by forcing themselves to take the sort of advice these 'experts' give, i.e. to eat less food/fewer calories in order to lose excess weight, they do not lose excess weight: they gain weight.

This is because eating insufficient food for your body's requirements weakens the blood vessel walls (as well as weakening every other system and every organ in the body), thus bringing about swollen, overstretched veins containing more fluid, and it is fluid retention that is the cause of obesity/excess weight. Whilever women and men continue to be constantly misinformed by the foolish, unscientific 'experts', obesity will continue to increase both in incidence and in severity.

To lose excess weight it is necessary to eat less salt and salty food because this will reduce the body's fluid retention. This is the safe, sure, healthy way to lose weight and it works like magic.

DON'T DIET! - Dieting is unnecessary, harmful and IT DOES NOT WORK!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

There are thousands of miles of blood vessels in the human body and every inch becomes a little swollen if they become weakened by dieting/'slimming'

There are many thousands of miles of blood vessels in the human body and every inch becomes a little swollen/distended/dilated if the blood vessels become weakened by dieting/'slimming'/fasting or relaxed by certain prescription drugs, e.g. tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline, cortico-steroids, oestrogen-rich medications, anti-psychotics, certain painkillers, etc. - This means in effect that because of fluid retention with sodium and the water it attracts to itself, increased blood volume will cause you to gain excess weight.

When I googled to find how many miles I found different estimates - 60,000, 62,000 and 100,ooo miles. - You may possibly find other estimates; but it's clearly a helluva lot!

When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, fluid retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in food

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers
Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

The privacy of millions of NHS patients will be critically undermined by a government plan to let medical researchers have access to personal files

NHS medical research plan threatens patient privacy
article in the Guardian

Extract:

"The privacy of millions of NHS patients will be critically undermined by a government plan to let medical researchers have access to personal files, the health information watchdog told the Guardian last night.

The prime minister and Department of Health want to give Britain's research institutes an advantage against overseas competitors by opening up more than 50m records, to identify patients who might be willing to take part in trials of new drugs and treatments."

It can be no part of the remit of the NHS or the Department of Health to give commercial advantage to Britain's drug companies. (Let's call a spade a spade: these are commercially-oriented drug companies surely, not research institutes.) This idea is disgraceful and should be scrapped.

Secret Pharma Payments To Vermont Doctors Disclosed

Payments by drugmakers to Vermont docs between July 2002 and June 2004 totaled more than $4.9 million, much more than the $2.7 million that was previously reported by Public Citizen in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2007, the advocacy group now says. The payment details were hidden by 21 drugmakers that designated the data as trade secrets, according to Public Citizen, which says it obtained the data through litigation and released an updated analysis, including the newly obtained data. The new material was published in a letter today in JAMA, and is a follow-up to Public Citizen’s testimony last year before the Senate Committee on Aging.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Low Salt Ideas that Don’t Compromise on Taste: - Guest Post by Sarah Scrafford

Low Salt Ideas that Don’t Compromise on Taste

I only learned how to cook a year ago; in fact, I was forced to learn when I started living alone – it was either that or starve to death. Of course, I could have just eaten out, but then, that would have caused havoc with both my bank balance and my fitness routine. The first time I went back home after I spread my own wings, I discovered that my mom’s cooking, which I had always loved, tasted too salty. The meat, the potatoes, everything seemed to have more than an extra pinch of salt. The funny thing was that I was the only one who was complaining about the salt; my siblings were appreciating the taste as always, and my dad, well, dad has to good-naturedly find some fault in mom’s cooking as a tradition.

To cut a long story short, I realized that my taste buds had gotten used to a low-salt diet and were now rebelling at the excess of sodium that they were being subjected to. The best part of the whole experience was the realization of the fact that anyone, even those who were used to a regular amount of salt in their diets, could get used to food that contained the minimum amount of sodium.

Salt, or more specifically the sodium that it contains, is extremely bad for you, especially if you’re prone to high blood pressure. Besides the salt that we routinely add to food, there’s also the sodium that comes in canned and processed goods. It helps to be aware of the dangers of, and avoid this white substance as much as possible. And if you’re wondering how to give salt the cold shoulder even as you don’t compromise on taste, read on to find out:

Prepare food from scratch rather than eat frozen or canned goods. Food that is ready to eat must contain a certain amount of sodium as a preservative. If you must eat from a can or a TV dinner, read the labels carefully and go for the ones that are low in sodium benzoate and sodium citrate.

Don’t reach for the salt shaker each time you feel your meal is missing some salt.

You’ll get used to the new taste soon enough. It’s just a matter of discipline and control.

When eating out, avoid fast foods and soups. Stick to steamed vegetables, chicken and fish.

Don’t get into the habit of adding sauces and other condiments to every salad or soup that you order.

When cooking, use herbs, spices, wine and lemon to add more taste to your food without having to resort to salt to do the trick.

Find recipes that do not require much salt to taste good.

Use unsalted or low salt butter and cheese if you must use these dairy products when cooking.

A salt-free diet translates to a trouble-free and healthy life – not only do you bring down your chances of developing hypertension, you also keep your weight down.

By-line:

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of Online EKG Programs. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com

As a result of Georgina Downs' campaign, people in the countryside at risk from crop sprays must be given better protection, the High Court has ruled.

Crop sprays a risk to health, rules High Court
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"the Government has been ordered to "rethink" its policies on pesticides so that human health is given more priority.

The ruling by Mr Justice Collins is a landmark victory for Georgina Downs who launched a one-woman campaign after her own health was damaged by crop spraying.

She argued that the Government had ignored evidence that agricultural chemicals damaged the health of people who - like herself - lived close to crop fields.

In his ruling the judge said Miss Downs had produced "strong" evidence to back her case and granted her application for a judicial review.

He said the Government had failed to meet its obligations under EU law to protect rural residents and communities from the possible harmful exposure to pesticides.

Miss Downs, whose home near Chichester, West Sussex, borders crop fields, launched her independent UK Pesticides Campaign in 2001.

Last month her campaigning against the unrestricted use of pesticides earned her a Woman of the Year award.

She had claimed that the Government based its decisions on an assumption that people suffered only occasional and short-term exposure.

Miss Downs said the Government had failed to address countryside residents such as herself, "who are repeatedly exposed to mixtures of pesticides and other chemicals throughout every year, and in many cases, like mine, for decades".

She told the court that she had collected evidence that agricultural chemicals caused a variety of health problems including cancer, Parkinson's disease, ME and asthma.

And she claimed that under current rules local people were not even entitled to a warning about what was being sprayed near their homes and gardens."

Today, November 14th, is World Diabetes Day.

Type 2 Diabetes is the type that is on the increase, and, ominously, younger and younger people, even children, are now becoming diabetic, where previously type 2 diabetes was an illness of older people.

Type 2 diabetes is strongly associated with obesity and overweight. - Tragically doctors and other advisers about obesity have for decades routinely been giving false information and advice about how to reduce/prevent obesity. - They have been telling people that obesity is caused by eating too much: they call this 'overeating'. And they have been telling overweight people to eat less/cut down on calories and to take more exercise. - These measures do not reduce obesity and are frequently harmful.

Obesity is actually caused not by overeating, but by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. Many prescription drugs cause salt sensitivity/fluid retention/obesity so it is best to avoid prescription drugs if you can.

To lose excess weight it is necessary to reduce the fluid retention that is causing it, and that mainly means avoiding salt and salty food, since it is salt/sodium that holds the excess fluid/water in the body and thus causes the excess weight. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO AVOID DIETING! - If you take my advice then not only will you avoid/reduce excess weight, you will avoid/reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and many other chronic degenerative illnesses.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

vulnerable groups

See amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

SSRI Pushers, by Evelyn Pringle

After twenty long years, it appears that the epidemic in mental disorders in America might be coming to an end. It won’t happen because of any great medical breakthrough but rather because the perpetrators of a healthcare fraud are finally being exposed. The demolition of the giant “psycho-pharmaceutical complex” appears to be on the horizon.
Read article at uniteforlife.wordpress.com

Rigged Trials: Drug Studies Favour The Manufacturer

If you have often suspected that drug studies are rigged by the pharmaceutical manufacturer, you are right. "Drug studies skewed toward study sponsors," reported The Washington Post. "Industry-funded research often favors patent-holders, study finds." Specifically, the American Journal of Psychiatry study authors said, "In 90% of the studies, the reported overall outcome was in favor of the sponsor's drug... On the basis of these contrasting findings in head-to-head trials, it appears that whichever company sponsors the trial produces the better antipsychotic drug."
Read news release from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service at orthomolecular.org

There are some concerns about nanotechnology

Novel Materials in the Environment:
The case of nanotechnology
from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's website

Painkillers Double Risk of Second Heart Attack or Death in Study

Heart attack and heart failure patients have a higher risk of a second heart attack or death if they take painkillers including the generic drug ibuprofen and Pfizer Inc.'s Celebrex, a Danish study found. The risk doubled within the first 90 days on the painkillers Celebrex or Merck & Co.'s withdrawn Vioxx in those who had survived a heart attack or heart failure, compared with those who didn't take the medications, according to research presented today at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans. Other common painkillers, such as the generics diclofenac and ibuprofen, increased the risk between 2.1 and 1.3 times.
Read article at bloomberg.com

Kevin P. Miller's Film "Generation RX" Reveals Widespread Ethical Conflicts, Risks of Psychiatric Drugs to Children

I have copied and pasted this post, from November 11th, and the comment that follows it, from Dr Rath's newsletter, as I have also done with some other posts. - See http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/

International award-winning filmmaker Kevin P. Miller announced today that his new film, "Generation RX" will be released on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 through the film's website at www.GenerationRxFilm.com. "Generation RX" addresses many of the alarming issues surrounding the growing use of ADHD drugs, antidepressants, and anti-psychotic medications among children and teenagers worldwide. "For decades, scores of doctors, government officials, journalists, and others have extolled the benefits of psychiatric medicines for children," said Miller, the film's writer and producer. "Generation RX unveils 'the rest of the story' and explains how this era of unprecedented change in Western culture really occurred -- and what price has been paid by society."
Read press release at prweb.com
Comment: "Generation RX" documents how an entire era of children have been caught in the middle of an unprecedented change in Western culture: that of drugging children with psychiatric medications earlier and more often than ever before. Kevin P. Miller's dynamic film has already garnered the support of some of the most respected names in Hollywood, including writer/director Paul Haggis, who won back-to-back Academy Awards for "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash." "Generation RX is a powerful and often chilling eye-opener. Weeks after viewing, the stories continue to haunt me," said Haggis.

A ban on six food additives linked to hyperactivity in children has reportedly been backed by the Government, signalling an end to green mushy peas.

Ban on food additives 'supported by ministers'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Ministers have agreed that if food manufacturers do not voluntarily phase out the additives, which the Food Standards Agency asked them to stop using earlier this year, they will pursue a ban through law, according to the BBC.

One of the additives is used to give mushy peas their bright green colour. Without it, the takeaway staple is a murky grey. Manufacturers have so far been unable to find an effective alternative.

The Food Standards Agency request came after researchers from Southampton University found last September that children behaved erratically and lost concentration after they consumed the additives, which are also commonly found in fizzy drinks, sweets and processed food.

The additives are Allura red (E129), an orange/red dye; Carmoisine (E122), a red colouring in jellies; Ponceau 4R (E124), a red colouring; Quinoline yellow (E104), a yellow colouring; Sunset yellow (E110), a colouring often found in squashes; and Tartrazine (E102), a colouring found in fizzy drinks, lollies and mushy peas."

Well it will be good if/when these additives do get banned, but in my opinion it is much more urgent for children's health to get rid of added salt from children's food.

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

vulnerable groups

Eating more tomatoes could help prevent scarring and adhesions associated with endometriosis

Tomatoes could hold key to treat painful condition suffered by women
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"A chemical in the fruit which gives it its red colour has been found to help prevent scarring associated with endometriosis.

A study found that when cells taken from the internal scar tissue were exposed to lycopene in the laboratory they reacted positively.

Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant which mops up other oxidative chemicals that cause damage in the body.

In this case it was found to prevent adhesions, where scar tissue builds up in thin films or thick lumps and can cause internal organs to stick together after surgery or due to certain diseases like endometriosis which can lead to fertility problems.

The disease occurs when cells that usually line the womb are found elsewhere in the body.

The most common symptom of endometriosis is pain or discomfort in the abdomen.

Dr Tarek Dbouk, from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, said lycopene could become a safe and cheap treatment in these conditions.

In a laboratory study, presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in San Francisco, the nutrient was found to cut the presence of proteins that cause tissue to form by between 80% and 90%.

Simply increasing the amount of lycopene in the diet through taking supplements or increasing the intake of tomatoes could become a preventative treatment before abdominal surgery and may lead to new treatments for endometriosis, he said."

Terrible warning about the dangers of DIY cosmetic surgery on the face...)o:

Cosmetic surgery addict injected cooking oil into her own face
article in the Telegraph: - Be sure to look at the before and after photographs.

Extracts:

"Hang Mioku, now 48, had her first plastic surgery procedure when she was 28; hooked from the beginning she moved to Japan where she had further operations - mostly to her face.

Following operation after operation, her face was eventually left enlarged and disfigured, but she would still look at herself in the mirror and think she was beautiful.

Eventually the surgeons she visited refused to carry out any more work on her and one suggested that her obsession could be a sign of a psychological disorder.

When she returned home to Korea the surgery meant Hang's features had changed so much that her own parents didn't recognise her."

"Amazingly, she found a doctor who was willing to give her silicone injects and, what's more, he then gave her a syringe and silicone of her own so she could self-inject.

When her supply of silicone ran out Hang resorted to injecting cooking oil into her face.

Her face became so grotesquely large that she was called "standing fan" by children in her neighbourhood - due to her large face and small body."

Overweight parents could be paid to walk their children to school as part of a Government campaign to fight the obesity epidemic. - It won't work!

Fat parents could be paid to walk their children to school
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Overweight parents could be paid to walk their children to school as part of a Government campaign to fight the obesity epidemic."

"Businesses which have signed up to the initiative include ITV, which is to run a series of programmes tracking viewers' attempts to live healthier lives, and Kellogg's, the cereal giant, which will support breakfast clubs in deprived areas."

There are many benefits to exercise, but reducing obesity is not one of them. There is no evidence that exercise reduces excess weight and there IS evidence that it doesn't! Extra exercise will make the parents and children tired without causing them to lose excess weight.

On Radio 4's "You and Yours" programme today they had discussion and phone-in and email contributions from listeners about the problem of obesity and about the Government's new initiative to tackle it with its creation of so-called 'healthy towns', promoting mainly an increase in exercise. As I've already stated, exercise will not reduce obesity. - One of the listeners who phoned in recited the advice we have all heard many thousands of times, namely to 'eat less and exercise more'. - She gave this advice along with the word that usually precedes it, i.e. she said, "Just eat less and exercise more!" - It's so simplistic and so very patronising - as if people are still unaware of this message and have never tried to follow this advice! - But they have! - over and over and over again! - The advice does not work! The advice usually causes weight GAIN not weight loss...)o:

The way to reduce excess weight/fluid retention is to eat plenty of food, but to avoid salt. - Ironically, Kellogg's, the firm that will be helping with breakfast clubs in deprived areas is one of the firms that adds a great deal of salt to most of its products - like cornflakes - so their 'help' is unlikely to do a lot of good...)o:

What a wasted opportunity! What a waste of money! - What needless, avoidable illness, pain and suffering the nation's obese children and adults will have to endure because the 'experts' - doctors, dieticians, the diet industry, Government ministers, the Department of Health, the World Health Organisation - have for so many years been giving out misinformation instead of helping people with the problems of overweight and obesity! What incalculable harm the food companies have done by their reckless addition of so much salt/sodium to processed convenience food and ready meals! - How they have warped the taste of their customers, giving them a taste for high salt food! - All of these people have great suffering and millions of early deaths on their consciences. - Those who know the truth - and there definitely are some who know the truth - are not correcting the lies that are harming innocent people because they do not want to admit that they have been misleading people all these years. They are frightened of being laughed at or getting into trouble or being sued... - They should be frightened of causing people to suffer pain and illness needlessly.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. It is not caused by too many calories, so it is not reduced by eating fewer calories or by using up more calories by increased exercise.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

vulnerable groups

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

There is a positive correlation between getting less than seven and a half hours' sleep and increased risk of developing heart disease.

Less than seven and a half hours' sleep 'could increase risk of heart attack'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"High blood pressure increases the risk of developing heart disease, which can lead to damage in the arteries and place strain on the heart.

An estimated one third of Britons, some 16 million people, are thought to suffer from high blood pressure.

It is more common in older people and an estimated half of all people over 65 suffer from the condition.

Scientists followed the sleep patterns of 1,255 people, with an average age of 70, who suffered from high blood pressure for more than four years.

They found that those who slept less than 7.5 hours a night, and whose blood pressure increased overnight, were 25 per cent more likely to suffer from heart disease."

All of the health problems mentioned in the article are exacerbated by high salt intake and reduced in incidence and severity when salt and salty food are avoided.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Why mobile phones may hurt backs.

Why mobile phones may hurt backs
article on the BBC news website. - The article is from 5 years ago, but I've only just come across it.

Extracts:

"People who chat on their mobile phone while walking could be hurting their back, according to a study. Scientists at Australia's University of Queensland say it's all down to the way we breathe."

"Dr Matthew Bennett, a spokesman for the British Chiropractic Association, welcomed the study.

"This is completely surprising," he told BBC News Online. "This is totally new research.

"It shows that we really shouldn't be talking and walking at the same time. Talking appears to disrupt our ability to walk efficiently.

"This is something we will now have to add to our list. People with bad backs should watch the way they bend to pick things up, shouldn't sit for too long and now it would seem shouldn't talk with someone they are walking with.

"This is particularly important for mobile phone users. We already know that holding a phone to your ear for long periods is bad for you, because it can increase tension across the shoulder and cause pain." "

Baroness Peta Buscombe, chief executive of the Advertising Association, is giving junk advice about junk food...

"Junk food companies will urge people to eat healthily"
article in the Sunday Telegraph:
"A multi-million pound campaign against Britain's obesity epidemic will tomorrow be launched by the Government together with the food industry.

If only! - What a waste of money! - It seems to be the same misinformation that will continue to be spread...)o: - However many times people say that sugar-free and low-fat alternatives will reduce obesity it still isn't true! And it also isn't true that exercise helps overweight people to lose weight. - It doesn't. - Calories/fat/inactivity are not the cause/s of excess weight. - Sodium retention/fluid retention/water retention/salt sensitivity cause weight gain, overweight and obesity. - To lose excess weight, people need to be told the truth, not misinformed. - Reducing calories/fat is unnecessary and ineffective in losing excess weight. But it is easy to lose excess weight by cutting down on salt and salty food...

Extract from the Sunday Telegraph article:

"Baroness Peta Buscombe, chief executive of the Advertising Association, which will run the Business for Life strategy, said businesses were keen to take "corporate responsibility" even if some of their products were unhealthy.

She said: "The labelling on a fizzy drink could say 'Try the sugar free next time', if it's a packet of bacon it might say 'I'm a thriller in the griller', or a box of eggs might say 'Please don't fry me'. This is about giving people a nudge in the right direction, not about nannying them."

Other companies might use their budgets to promote cooking lessons or sports events, she said.

The Conservative peer said companies were keen to demonstrate that advertising could be used for a good purpose, but said it would be down to individual companies about how far they went in sending messages which could hit their profits.

"Many of these companies will have sugar-free and low-fat alternatives that they can promote but it is down to companies to decide their individual messages, as long as they are agreed by the Department of Health. It can't only be about putting positive messages on healthy foods," she said.

Government figures show obesity is responsible for 9,000 premature deaths a year in England, reducing life expectancy by an average of nine years.

The NHS cost of treating illnesses related to obesity is estimated at £4.2 billion, a figure predicted to double by 2050."

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

The uselessness and cruelty of the NHS Complaints Procedures: FIGHTING THE SYSTEM.

The first feature article I wrote for Mensa's monthly glossy magazine was about medical and dental negligence and the uselessness, cruelty and bias of the NHS Complaints Procedures, and was entitled 'Fighting the System'. In the years since then there will have been changes to the Complaints Procedure, but I am confident that it still harms complainants rather than helping them or reforming the system.

This is a slightly shortened version of the article:

Fighting the System

An abscess flared up on one of my front teeth. Talking was difficult and sleep impossible. My dentist said there was nothing wrong. So I went to the Dental Hospital. The pain - sudden, acute, accompanied by swelling, most severe when biting - was exactly characteristic of an acute abscess. But the pain was discounted and the abscess not treated.

When you have toothache you chew in strange ways to avoid exacerbating it. This puts unnatural pressures on teeth and it is easy to crack them. This happened to me. A cracked cusp, a separate agony, went untreated. Tooth-brushing was an ordeal and could not be as thorough as before the pain. Decay started, causing further severe toothache. This also went untreated. It was almost a year before the abscess was treated. It was over two years before I obtained treatment for all the dental disorders causing the toothache!

If consulted by a man with an abscess and weeping in agony, surely the most negligent dentist would take note of the signs and symptoms and would treat the abscess in its acute phase, ending the pain. In a full year of many attendances at the Sheffield Dental Hospital I was constantly insulted and left in agony. One consultant called me 'You Fat Depressives', plural, instead of using my name. It was clear that he habitually addressed suffering women in this way.

I eventually found a dentist brave enough to try to put things right. He dealt with the gross infections, etc but tragically much of the pain had by this time become chronic, which often happens when the cause is not dealt with promptly.

I heard from other women who had had their pain derided or been told that it was 'nerves' or 'all in the mind'. One Rotherham woman had endured agony from trigeminal neuralgia for 13 years before someone (a neurosurgeon in private practice) took her pain seriously and operated. The pain then stopped. Trigeminal neuralgia mainly attacks women and its only symptom is pain. It is not uncommon for people to kill themselves because of severe toothache or because of trigeminal neuralgia, so intense is the pain.

Thirteen years of needless agony. Why does such cruelty flourish? The answer is many-faceted, of course. It includes ignorance and arrogance. Pre-eminent, however, is the health professional's demeaning attitude towards women, coupled with the scandalous fact that in this country doctors and dentists are accountable to no-one, not to the patient, not to the hospital, not to the NHS.

Women are sub-human, second-class citizens whose voice need not be heeded. Everyone knows, don't they, that whatever a woman complains of, the 'real' cause is usually psychological, and instead of investigation and treatment all she needs is a brusque injunction to pull herself together and a prescription for tranquillisers and anti-depressants. That'll settle her!

In my desperate efforts to obtain the treatment I needed I turned to every health agency. All pretended that negligence does no occur. No-one insisted that my teeth be examined and my agonising toothache dealt with. The health agencies and the people to whom complainants must address complaints are financed by the DHSS or the NHS and by definition not impartial. The Complaints Procedure routinely adds to the difficulties of complainants rather than dealing with their complaints of negligence.

Why are the legislators not moved to effective remedial legislation? There are many reasons, I suppose; laziness, fear, the myth of medical infallibility, the desire to keep in with medics and their retinues, the fact that most MPs use private medicine rather than the NHS and that when they do use the NHS they get preferential treatment. Surely, also, a lack of imagination - failure to comprehend the scale of the suffering, the profound and terrible difficulties of damaged victims - trapped in pain and distress and worry, trapped in misunderstanding, trapped in bewilderment that those to whom they turn for help and from whom they have been led to believe they will receive it, adopt a confrontational stance. There is no-one in the entire edifice of the Health Service from whom victims of medical negligence can be assured of receiving help. They do not know where to turn.

In the Sheffield Star of August 20th 1986, the Administrator of the Sheffield Family Practitioner Committee is quoted as saying of complaints that most of them 'were dealt with amicably, although in some cases the patient was struck off'. Dealing with complaints is clearly thought of as a matter of smoothing ruffled feathers or of placating/punishing the complainant, rather than of examining faults that need to be put right. If you made a complaint about trains, you would not consider it resolved by being forbidden to travel by train any more, would you? Why should a complaint about a doctor be considered resolved by crossing the complainant off his list?

When in the press someone criticises the medical profession, another person is certain to write in to protest that they themselves received wonderful treatment. e.g. the dreadful way that Sue Arnold was treated at the Moorfields Eye Clinic in London, reported a few months ago in her column in the Observer magazine. The following week someone wrote about their wonderful treatment there. If you publicised finding a dead mouse in a loaf, no-one would dream of writing to say that they had had a loaf from the same shop and it hadn't had a dead mouse in it! Officials aver that the public makes few complaints about the Health Service. Like saying that most of our loaves don't contain dead mice.

The official claim disregards the justifiable fears many people have about making a complaint. You risk being struck of a doctor's list (and often the family of the complainant is also struck off) and may find it difficult to get a doctor at all.

The main reason for outraged complaint is being treated as sub-human. As I was. Callously left in agony which could easily have been treated and which I clearly could not treat myself. Agony for which it was impossible to get relief without the treatment that was being denied me. Abscesses and caries cannot 'get better'. There has to be professional intervention.

By allowing medics to insult people under the guise of diagnosing them, by allowing honourable people to be treated in this appalling way, humanity is defiled. By categorising the person who then complains as a nuisance who must be pacified if possible and quelled if not, no-one is safe from such defilement.

There are moves to tinker with the Complaints Procedure. The Primary Health Care leaflet, with the Government's proposals for discussion on health services outside hospital, suggests that there should be informal conciliation procedures to settle less serious complaints quickly and effectively. Again the ruffled feathers syndrome. Complainants do not want conciliation, they want remedial action taken about the complaint. Officially, negligence does not occur. So nothing is done about it.

It would be salutary to cause to be published a sample of the complaints of the last year and what the Complaints Procedure did about them. This would show it up for the charade it is. One only hears of anything being done if the matter is given publicity, which seldom helps.

That suffering, ill, exhausted people damaged by the medical profession have the right to redress in the civil courts is no right at all. Only 3% or 4% of cases get to court and they take a minimum of 4 years to get there. Everything is weighted against the victim, especially the hostile attitude of the Health Authorities. In any case, action in the civil courts has only individual relevance. General reform cannot result.

What victims most need is remedial treatment. There is no provision for this. What can be more important than the right to urgent remedial treatment when you have been harmed by hospital personnel? Gross medical negligence is compounded by the implacable unhelpfulness of the Health Authorities.

The NHS should be accountable to the consumer - i.e. the patient. Medical and dental staff have absolute power to give or to withhold necessary investigation and treatment to patients, to treat them with insolence, to defame their characters in privileged communications, etc. provided only that they call this the exercise of 'clinical judgment'. (Compare this with, in recent times in Parliament, the ritual incantation that a matter is one of 'national security' and as such no-one has the right to question it.) Such power is clearly dangerous, is open to abuse and is clearly being abused. Terrible suffering like mine would be totally prevented if medical and dental staff were accountable.

Negligence

There can be nothing in this country more heinously unjust than the lack of help for the suffering victims of medical negligence. Patients have no protection whatsoever from the ignorance, incompetence, negligence and sometimes sheer malice of doctors and dentists. People who are not victims of the system are unaware of the situation. That negligent doctors and dentists incur neither censure nor sanction from the system ensures that negligence flourishes.

It is a moral imperative for caring people to do what they can to bring a speedy end to this cruelty.

The Complaints Procedure needs to be scrapped and replaced by a system providing immediate help for the victim of negligence (I don't mean money; I mean remedial treatment and support) and an independent inquiry into the negligence with the purpose of apportioning responsibility and instituting reform to protect potential future victims. I stress that I am not interested in legal redress. I am asking for legislative action to remedy a national scandal.

The Health Ombudsman defines instances of medical negligence as matters of clinical judgment, and matters of clinical judgment, conveniently for negligent doctors and dentists, are outside his terms of reference. So he does not help. His reply to my letter made clear that he had given scant attention to my arduously compiled material. My evidence was ignored.

This state of affairs is independent of who the individuals are who become victims, being only dependent on the deficiencies of a system which allows the magic phrase 'clinical judgment' to override reason, humanity and justice. Clinical judgment cannot, by definition, obtain, where clinical diagnostic procedures have been waived. To pretend otherwise is an abuse of language, an abuse of trust, effectively an abuse of power and in practice a physical and psychological abuse of individual victims.

These abuses are systemic and must be rooted out. The powerless and suffering need protection from such cruelty.

There was a public inquiry about Wendy Savage, a doctor neither negligent nor incompetent, and about whom no patients had lodged complaints. There are no inquiries into real cases of negligence, initiated by the victims. Health professionals would be much more careful if their actions were to be subjected to public scrutiny.

Drug safety reports are kept secret

Drug side-effects including deaths, birth defects and disability are the fifth biggest cause of death in European hospitals, but reports on these dangers are being kept secret.
Read article in the Irish Examiner (Ireland)

Public Citizen Petitions FDA To Ban Glaxo’s Avandia

The consumer group wants the agency to have the diabetes pill yanked over deaths from liver failures and other life-threatening risks. In a statement, Public Citizen calls Avandia, which is used to treat Type Diabetes 2, “unacceptably dangerous,” and cites new research to justify its petition. The move comes after the American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes last week both advised against using Avandia (look here and here).
Read article at pharmalot.com

More Kids Are Taking More Meds Than Ever Before. - This is very risky...

There follows another cut and paste from the Dr Rath Foundation newsletter complete with the newsletter's Comment:

More American children are taking pills for diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol than ever before, reflecting a rise in chronic diseases related to obesity. The use of drugs for type-2 diabetes, in particular, doubled in children ages 5 to 19 and statins rose by 15 percent between 2002 and 2005, according to a study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Read article at pharmalot.com
Comment: Not content with already having made death by medicine the leading cause of death and injury in the United States, the American medical system is increasingly trying to turn the youngest, most vulnerable, people in the country into lifelong drug-users.

A major cause of ill-health in children is, of course, eating salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Prednisone - Steroid-Induced Osteoporosis - Bones at risk!

Steroid-Induced Osteoporosis
Long-term use of prednisone could cost you the health of your bones.

I came across the website with the link above. It is very interesting and informative. Here you may read about steroids such as prednisone being prescribed to decrease inflammation during an acute flare-up of IBD. You may like to consider whether the potential harm from the prednisone is actually worth the relief of the inflammation. There is also information about statins and about risk factors in the formation of cataracts and the development of glaucoma.

If I had my time again, speaking for myself I'd avoid prescription drugs as though they were poison. - I'd put my trust in plenty of good nutritious food, no added salt and absolutely NO DIETING! But obviously we must all do what we think best.

I definitely don't recommend weak bones...)o: - I had a fall in August last year. - It wasn't a big fall but it made a real mess of my right arm, and delay in getting it operated on lost me the use of my right hand for months - and appalling pain - pain that hasn't gone... Guard your bones! - You won't get another set...

Calcium and vitamin D can help.

And you can also reduce the harm done by prednisone and other steroids by cutting out salt from your meals.

See Sodium in foods

and prescribed steroids and HRT

Court hears amputee's case on limits of drug suits

This news item is copied and pasted from the Dr Rath Foundation Newsletter, as are some other posts on my blog. The comment beneath the news item is also from Dr Rath's Newsletter.

The Bush administration and a drug maker urged the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a multimillion dollar verdict to a Vermont musician who lost her arm because of a botched injection to relieve nausea. The case is being watched closely by the pharmaceutical industry and consumer groups because of its potential for broad limits on lawsuits by people, such as Diana Levine, who were harmed by prescription drugs.
Read Associated Press news report at google.com
Comment: The crucial question before the court in this case is whether the approval of drug labels by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should knock out state lawsuits contending that the labels did not contain adequate warnings. Significantly therefore, it should be noted that the FDA’s approval procedures have been criticized as being subject to serious conflicts of interest.

Vitamin C May Slow Cancer Down

And, Doctors Say, Can Reverse It as Well
The BBC recently reported that "Vitamin C 'slows cancer growth.' An injection of a high dose of vitamin C may be able to hold back the advance of cancers, US scientists claim. The vitamin may start a destructive chain reaction within the cancer cell." The injection "halved the size" of tumors, and was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study authors themselves said that daily, high-dose vitamin C treatment "significantly decreased growth rates" of ovarian, pancreatic, and malignant brain tumors in mice. Such high, cancer-stopping levels of vitamin C can be "readily achieved in humans given ascorbate intravenously."
Read news release from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service at orthomolecular.org

Women who eat too little during pregnancy increase the risk of their children becoming obese in later life, experts have warned.

Women who eat too little during pregnancy increase risk of obesity in children
Article in the Telegraph: - further evidence that dieting is harmful.

I suppose that women who eat too little during pregnancy do it because they hope that this will prevent them from gaining too much weight during pregnance. - Actually, the way to prevent excessive weight gain during pregnancy is to avoid eating salt or salty food. This also reduces the risk of developing high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. It is also good for the baby-to-be that the pregnant mother avoids salt and salty food.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pregnant_mothers.html - some advice for pregnant mothers

And see Sodium in foods

If you're obese or overweight, Salt is the killer on your plate! Margaret Wilde © 2008

If you're obese or overweight,
SALT is the poison on your plate!

Margaret Wilde © 2008

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Could the steroid, prednisolone, help women to avoid repeated miscarriages?

How £1-a-month drug could end the misery of miscarriages
article in the Daily Mail

Extract 1:

"Thousands of women could be spared the misery of repeated miscarriages with a pill that costs just £1 a month, it emerged yesterday.

Researchers have found fresh evidence that a third of unexplained miscarriages may be caused by an overactive immune system.

They believe treatment with a common steroid, used for asthma and allergies, can curb the immune response and protect an unborn baby in the crucial early weeks of pregnancy.

The findings offer hope to around 9,000 women who have unexplained miscarriages each year in Britain.

In preliminary trials, around three-quarters of women who had a history of miscarriages had successful pregnancies after taking the steroid.

Dr Siobhan Quenby, who is carrying out the pioneering work at Liverpool University, is now beginning a larger trial to make sure the results are not simply down to the placebo effect."

Extract 2

"In a new trial which began last month, Dr Quenby plans to test these results by giving half of the women she recruits a dummy placebo and the rest a dose of the steroid.

Prednisolone’s side effects include mood swings and increased appetite.

However, most women would need to take it for just three months."

I suggest that it is important that any women who get prescribed for this problem be clearly informed that they need to cut out salt and salty food while taking this steroid drug, otherwise they are at great risk of fluid retention and consequent avoidable weight gain. - The fluid retention/weight gain is responsible for the mood swings and increased appetite and can be avoided by sticking to low salt intake. This would also lower the risk of developing many other health problems.

See Sodium in foods

and prescribed steroids and HRT